I don’t think I’ve ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.

I don’t really focus on these things – on what tags are given to me or what people think of me off the field – stuff like that. My main focus is always to do well on the field for the Indian cricket team. When people say good things about me off the field, I am more than happy to accept them.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

Death is a fearful thing.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it’s about earning approval and acceptance.

Lord Jesus, we come just as we are; this is how we came at first, and this is how we come still, with all our failures, with all our transgressions, with all and everything that is what it ought not to be, we come to Thee.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

I don’t want enemies. I want friends, and I want them in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and loving whoever they want to.

There is nothing your highest self wants more than peace. This peace makes you feel worthy of all of the richest blessings of the universe, and when you radiate this out into the world, it is returned to you without fail.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

I’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process.

Why, if someone is good in one field can they not be accepted or given the slightest opportunity to express and be creative in other fields?

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there’s always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

I’m a writer. I don’t support any war. That’s my principle.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

Time is the only critic without ambition.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

What I believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman, but what I also believe is that we have an obligation to make sure that gays and lesbians have the rights of citizenship that afford them visitations to hospitals, that allow them to be, to transfer property between partners, to make certain that they’re not discriminated on the job.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.

Old age is just a record of one’s whole life.

It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them. We don’t want victories anymore.

Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Death obsesses me, yes it does. I can’t really understand why it doesn’t obsess everyone – I think it does really, I’m just a little more out about it.

I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will are too often exalted as the gods of man’s idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought.

You can’t do something forever.

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.

The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

Choosing an attitude of faith will release peace out of your spirit and into your soul.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

We can, for example, be fairly confident that either there will be a world without war or there won’t be a world – at least, a world inhabited by creatures other than bacteria and beetles, with some scattering of others.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

We’re in the last days, man – I truly, in my heart, believe that. It’s written. I could go on with biblical situations and things my grandma told me. But it’s about being at peace with myself and making good with the people around me.

No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.

I can’t help the way you was born if you was gay.